Posted on 03/30/2006 11:55:28 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
Editor, County Press - The badly decomposed body of a 23-year-old man from Guatemala was found Sunday afternoon by Deputy Shelly Haertig on Castillo Road near Bayside after the deceased man’s father came to Refugio in search of news of his son. Homicide has not been ruled out.
Edwin Garcia’s body was unrecognizable but for two gold teeth and a handwritten note in Spanish to his girlfriend tucked away in his pocket.
“I love you always. Edwin and Claudia. Tigger, I love you very much.”
A pair of Timberland boots lay near the body, recently purchased for the trip to the United States to join his father and brother, both of whom are in this country on work visas and living in Houston.
Through an interpreter, Nicholas Garcia told investigating officers in the sheriff’s department that Edwin called 18 days ago to say he was coming to Houston. Eight days ago, he called from Mexico and then communications stopped. Nicholas received an anonymous call believed to be from one of the other passengers. The caller reported that Edwin became ill along the route from Mexico and was abandoned by smugglers on Castillo Road.
The first place Nicholas stopped off was Refugio Memorial Hospital. Hospital personnel contacted the sheriff’s department which led to a search of Castillo Road off State Highway 136 near Bayside. The sheriff said the area is believed to be a longtime staging area for human smugglers. Haertig had little trouble finding the body.
“We found the body in the exact location that three other men were dumped out five years ago,” Sheriff Earl Petropoulos said. “Those particular undocumented immigrants were riding in the trunk and the coyotes thought they were dead so they dumped them out. Smugglers are ruthless and have no compassion.”
Justice of the Peace Cher Whitlow pronounced Edwin Garcia dead at the scene and an autopsy was ordered to determine the cause of death and if foul play may have had something to do with his death.
“We’re not ruling out anything,” the sheriff said. “We’re leaving all the doors open until we hear back from the medical examiner.”
At just over five feet tall, Edwin was found with his pants down to his knees and his shirt was hiked high on his chest. Believed dead for three to five days, Edwin’s boots were off, one near the body and the other about eight feet away. The grass showed a clear path where Edwin’s body was drug from the gravel-caliche road to the brush. A small pile of gravel and caliche behind tire marks led Petropoulos to believe the smugglers left quickly after dropping off the body. “The human smugglers don’t care anything about these people,” Petropoulos said. “If the immigrants get sick, they throw them out like a piece of trash. If you can’t keep up, they’ll leave you behind.”
The atrocities that deputies witness in almost daily encounters with illegal immigrants passing through the county weighs heavily on his officers and this case is especially tragic, Petropoulos said after speaking to the family.
“These people go three and four days without food or water,” he said. “We’ve seen women with burns from being forced to ride too close to the exhaust pipe and feet infected from thorns and stickers from walking through the brush.”
The sheriff said that deputies pass out water to illegal immigrants and those taken into custody are fed a meal “so they don’t leave hungry” and if the Border Patrol can’t pick them up soon, trustees often wash their clothes. Had the coyotes seen fit to drop the man off in a less secluded spot, had he been alive, his fate might have been different.
“This young man was just trying to find a better life and his death is a crying shame,” Petropoulos said.
The badly decomposed body of a 23-year-old man from Guatemala was found Sunday afternoon by Deputy Shelly Haertig on Castillo Road near Bayside after the deceased man’s father came to Refugio in search of news of his son. Homicide has not been ruled out.
Edwin Garcia’s body was unrecognizable but for two gold teeth and a handwritten note in Spanish to his girlfriend tucked away in his pocket.
Sad.
Maybe he should have banded together with friends and like minded people in his home country to try to bring change about there....He would most likely still be alive today.
Coyotes Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
"“This young man was just trying to find a better life and his death is a crying shame,” Petropoulos said.'
His death is a sad thing, ... but when a man is smuggling himself illegally into a foreign country, we really don't know what his reasons were. Good people do not take on such activity.
Sounds like prostitution or looking for love in all the wrong places.
Of course, his killers may have wanted him to look like a beaten male prostitute rather than a smuggler's victim.
I'm thinking of starting a group "Americans for Revolution in Mexico". We need to help our "Latino" brothers and sisters understand what they need to do. So far, their best idea is to come here and screw up America.
It's a shame he died, but that's the chances you take when you make a concious decision to break the law by hiring smugglers to get you into the country illegally.
Let that be a warning to others.
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